Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

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John Johann
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Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by John Johann »

We use Azure DevOps and manually synchronise our H&M 7 projects.

When I synchronise a master English project with other language siblings and then check in, I frequently get other "changes" in topics I haven't touched, e.g.:

OLD --> href="../helpproject.xsl"
NEW --> href="helpproject.xsl"

OLD --> status="Needs Review"
NEW --> status="needs review"

OLD --> scale="-60.00%" width="399" height="167"
NEW --> scale="-60.00%" width="-19" height="-19"

These aren't really changes and they make it harder to track actual changes -- is there any way to mitigate this behaviour?
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Tim Green
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by Tim Green »

John Johann wrote: Fri Nov 06, 2020 9:20 am These aren't really changes and they make it harder to track actual changes -- is there any way to mitigate this behaviour?
Actually, they are changes. The XSL style is updated continually based on your style definitions. It isn't really needed normally, but it makes it possible for XML editors and browsers to display an approximate preview of your XML files. (That is all it is used for.) The different status text depends on how it is defined in individual users' versions of the projects. Or they are using different versions of Help+Manual, which is something you urgently need to correct. If multiple users are working on the same project they MUST all use EXACTLY the same version and build number of the program. That is critical. The scale settings are also a genuine change, which has been correctly flagged.
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John Johann
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by John Johann »

Just a few questions:
How does the xsl get updated if I don't change the styles?
We are only using one version of Help&Manual.

I have noticed this behaviour on my own machine. As I stated, these "changes" are to topics which I haven't necessarily touched in an editing session -- so it seems to be the synchronisation tool which is doing it (set to flag changes only). That should therefore adjust the status if it has changed but not do anything to the image width/height. It also shouldn't insert/remove the "../" at the xsl, or capitalise or remove capitalisation of n(N)eeds r(R)eview.
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Tim Green
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi John,

My guess is it's something to do with updates in HM but I'm having our devs check into this. May take until beginning of next week for a reply as it's already Friday evening here. :)
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Alexander Halser
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

Hi John,

We are going to look into this.
OLD --> href="../helpproject.xsl"
NEW --> href="helpproject.xsl"
This is definitely a bug. Every XML file refers to the style sheet for HTML presentation outside Help+Manual. And this style sheet is relative to the topic XML file. It could be "../helpproject.xsl" or "../../helpproject.xsl" (depending on the location of the topic file), but never "helpproject.xsl". You do not see these changes in Help+Manual, for the XSL style sheet is internally not used.

I'll comment about this next week, when we know more.
Alexander Halser
Senior Software Architect, EC Software GmbH
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Alexander Halser
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

Hi John,

We've updated the 8.2.2 beta to build 5692:
https://www.helpandmanual.com/download/ ... p-v822.exe

This fixes the wrong XSL reference and correctly applies the topic status with a camel-case "Needs Review" instead of a lowercase "needs review". Please note that the topic status is deliberately changed by the synchronization tool. If the status of the target topic (in the language sibling that is being synced) did have a topic status different than "Needs Review", it will be changed to "Needs Review" after the sync. So you might experience changes though.
Alexander Halser
Senior Software Architect, EC Software GmbH
John Johann
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by John Johann »

Hi John, Alexander,
Thanks for looking into and dealing with this.
Now all I need is V8.
Simon_Dismore
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by Simon_Dismore »

John Johann wrote: Fri Nov 13, 2020 8:31 am Now all I need is V8.
V8 is well worth it. In 2019 there was a 30% Black Friday discount, cross fingers for this year...
John Johann
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by John Johann »

Thanks for the info. Pity I couldn't get my hands on my boss today!
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Tim Green
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

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John Johann wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 5:19 pm Thanks for the info. Pity I couldn't get my hands on my boss today!
Just contact us at support when you reach your boss and we can arrange something. We're quite unbureaucratic about these things... 8)
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John Johann
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by John Johann »

Excellent :-) -- I should hopefully know more tomorrow.
John Johann
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by John Johann »

Just after downloading the latest version -- :D
Any issues I should be watching out for when updating from V7 to V8 or can I just install and be happy?
Thanks -- and a big thank you for being unbureaucratic!!!
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Tim Green
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Re: Azure DevOps -- synch and formatting

Unread post by Tim Green »

John Johann wrote: Mon Jan 25, 2021 5:52 pm Any issues I should be watching out for when updating from V7 to V8 or can I just install and be happy?
Thanks -- and a big thank you for being unbureaucratic!!!
Thanks for the kind words! Just install and be happy -- your existing projects can be edited directly and a new version of HM always installs to a new folder in the program directory, so the previous version remains untouched and can still be used. 8)
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